A list containing the names of 244 wanted Austrians accused of brutal Nazi war crimes has been located by Holocaust researchers among U.S. Army records stored at the U.S. National Archives.
The wanted list was compiled by the U.S. Army in 1948 from information supplied by the Allied War Powers and by the United Nations War Crimes Commission. It was released here by Menachem Rosensaft, founding chairman of the International Network of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors.
The majority of those listed are charged with committing atrocities while serving with the forces of Nazi Germany during World War II. The specific charges include “murder,” “torture,” and “brutality.”
Last year it was discovered that a similar U.S. Army wanted list contained the name of Kurt Waldheim and called for his apprehension on charges of “murder.” That discovery led to the finding that in 1948 the UN War Crimes Commission sought to place Waldheim on trial for “putting hostages to death.”
Among those on the Army wanted list found at the National Archives are Gestapo agents, concentration camp guards, SS commanders, and Nazi Party officials. Personnel from the concentration camps at Auschwitz, Dachau, Mauthausen, and Treblinka are included on the list.
In all, crimes committed in nearly a dozen European countries are described in the Army document. It shows that the listed individuals were sought for prosecution by Belgium. Britain, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, Holland, Poland and Yugoslavia. Seven individuals were sought as “witnesses.”
MOST IMPORTANT ITEM OF INFORMATION
Rosensaft noted that the most important item of information contained in the army document is the entry which provides the file number of the UN War Crimes Commission for each individual listed. That criminal file contains the evidence and a complete description of the charges against the named individual.
As in the case of Waldheim, the United Nations has thus far refused public access to these files currently in the custody of the UN Secretary General. Recent demands by member-nations of the War Crimes Commission for more liberalized access to these files may lead to changes in the restrictive rules governing their availability.
The World Jewish Congress has been informed that the U.S. Army wanted list is currently in the possession of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, the government’s Nazi-hunting unit, and they are proceeding with the matter as appropriate under American law.
In this regard, Rosensaft pointed out that while many of the listed individuals are dead, an undetermined number were certainly still alive, and some may have surreptitiously made their way to the United States.
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